By: Robin Ford Wallace, Staff Reporter

In the line of duty, Patty Murphy has been chased by dogs and attacked by turkeys, and once she was held hostage in her car by a flock of angry geese.

It’s all in a day’s work, figures Ms. Murphy, who with partner Dusty Rumley cruises the highways and byways on the business of the Dade County Tax Assessor’s office, and she’s not asking for combat pay.  All she’s asking for is: a uniform.

 “Me personally, I’m out in the field and all my clothes are being demolished from dogs and briars and mud,” said Ms. Murphy, addressing the Dade County Board of Assessors at the group’s Nov. 3 meeting.

She’s tired of it, she told board members, and proposed that they contract with Tri-State Rentals to furnish field personnel with sturdy uniforms consisting of blue denim pants and shirts, short sleeves for summer, long for winter, breast insignia with name (“Patty”) embroidered for a nominal one-time charge of $33.   

The board voted to approve the uniforms for the rest of 2009, expecting to recoup the expense with savings from its utility budget as the county revamps its telephone service, a change that was adopted by the Dade County Commission last year. So, at least for the balance of this year, Tri-State will furnish and launder uniforms for a weekly charge of $8.96 per person, and the statuesque Ms. Murphy can save her fashionable duds for after hours.

Meanwhile, the other star of the “Patty and Dusty:  Tax Appraisers” show is not sure whether he’ll wear the uniform or not. Dusty Rumley, younger son of County Executive Ted, wouldn’t mind wearing it in solidarity, “to save Patty from looking like a goofball,” he said. 

But young Rumley, currently studying to be an emergency medical technician, plans to leave the office next spring and doesn’t want the BOA to spend unnecessary money for his sake. “Clothes are meant to be worn and if they get dirty, big deal,” he said.

It was unclear whether the youthful appraiser, still in his 20s, was yet responsible for doing his own laundry.

Still, he conceded that Ms. Murphy might see things differently. “Apparently, most women spend more money on their clothes than I do,” he said.

In other business, the board voted to approve its annual mobile home tax digest. Trailers, it seems, are placed in a separate category from the regular tax digest, and treated rather differently tax-wise. “When they get their bill, that’s their chance to appeal,” Paula Duvall, chief appraiser, said of mobile home owners. “They have from the time they get their bill until March 15 to appeal.” 

For anyone interested, there are 1,254 mobile homes in Dade County, valued at a total of $19,176,772.

Ms. Duvall also told an abbreviated board – missing from the meeting were members Charlie Browning and John Bradbury – that she had researched and settled an ongoing argument the tax office had had with paper manufacturer Bowater. Bowater, she said, had been on the books as owning a 34-acre tract and a 65-acre tract at the foot of Fox Mountain in Rising Fawn. 

Bowater sold the 65 acres five years ago. “So that remaining 34 has been in Bowater’s name since 2004, and they’ve argued since 2004 that they don’t own that, that everything they owned in Dade County, they sold, that it’s gone,” she said.

Bowater turned out to be right, she said. After matching deed for deed, Ms. Duvall discovered that the company had never owned the disputed 34 acres after all. Corrected bills have thus been issued for all years 2004 and forward, she said.

BOA Chairwoman Hazel Doyle called an executive session toward the end of the meeting, but no action was taken nor vote made during the session.

The board’s next regularly scheduled monthly meeting is Dec. 1.